The Excavations of San Giovanni di Ruoti: The Villas and Their Environment, Volume I (review)

A thorough excavation report brimming with detailed information can easily become a pedantic publication, but A. M. Small and R. J. Buck’s careful summary and analysis of the remains of three successive Roman villas at San Giovanni di Ruoti does not overwhelm the reader. Small and Buck, both of the University of Alberta, collaborated with other researchers of the Canadian team in this study, which is based on excavations conducted between 1977 and 1984. The historical, archaeological, topographic, and related information—the underpinnings of the study—are analyzed and correlated into a broad view of the site, its economy, and its relevance to the history of South Italy. This volume is limited to historical and geographical considerations and to artifacts relevant for dating the villas; later volumes will focus on other physical remains.

The organization is clear and logical: a general overview and history of the site in the first chapter is followed in chapter 2 by detailed discussion of the area’s physical environment, including climatic, topographic, and hydrographic considerations, and in chapter 3 by a field survey that characterizes the history of each successive villa. The summary of the historical background in chapter 4 includes discussion of early Lucania, its administration under the Roman Empire, and its later connections with Ravenna and the Adriatic. This is followed in chapter 5 by a discussion of villa building in Roman Lucania, in which Small characterizes both Roman villas in general and the development of the Lucanian villa specifically.

In the following chapters (6–9) Small and Buck treat the excavations chronologically and discuss each period’s significant artifacts and building: masonry, building techniques, structures (including the period 1 water mill, which may be the earliest archaeologically-attested mill of this type), pottery, lamps, glass, windows, coins, and mosaics. Of particular note are the mosaics, dated 460–500 C.E., which provide evidence for the persistence of this decorative tradition in this fairly remote area, and the two middens from period 3A, which supply important information about trade, diet, and chronology. The organization of these chapters is particularly helpful and clearly demarcated; one can easily find the information desired and bypass other material, choosing, for example, to read the entire presentation of rural economy or to skim specifics on cereals, legumes, and fruit trees.

The final topic, in chapter 10, is an extensive study of the various building materials, from mortar to roofing tiles. Particularly interesting for Lucania’s place in the development of construction in southern Italy is the fact that the types of brick commonly used for building in metropolitan Rome are not found at San Giovanni di Ruoti. Completing the body of the book are the 34 sectional drawings in chapter 11 that provide stratigraphic evidence and demonstrate the sequence of structures.

The three villas discovered at San Giovanni di Ruoti have been dated from the first to the mid sixth centuries C.E.. The earliest, modest villa was abandoned and then re inhabited when economic conditions improved. The final villa, the most original and grandiose of the sequence, was built c. 400 C.E. and enlarged approximately 60 years later; it is this final construction phase that illustrates the transition in villa design between the Late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages. Some elements, such as the baths, are traditionally Roman; others, such as garbage disposal methods and the absidal hall on an upper floor, seem to anticipate the Middle Ages.

Two examples from the last phase of construction are especially interesting: a mosaic from room 61 (period 3B) exhibits a looped border pattern found in Christian basilicas of the fifth and sixth centuries, and the divided windows in the absidal room are similar to those found in churches in Ravenna and the Adriatic area in late antiquity. The continuity from the Roman into the Christian period suggested by these parallels...